Their Icons, Our Icons

For Hindutva to succeed electorally, it requires broad-based Hindu support. This means the subsuming of caste identity into a larger religious framework and the promotion of a Hindu community with shared interests above caste considerations. This religious identity becomes the basis of mobilising votes and campaign rhetoric is designed to persuade voters that while Hindus may have internal differences, exacerbated by caste, they must unite for their greater common good. Of course, caste is a social hierarchy. A growing consciousness in independent India of the